Tesla versus Corvette &ndash; who wins in a quarter mile sprint?

By Staff, Relaxnews | January 31, 2014 |

A head-to-head race with a 2014 Corvette Stingray Z51 reveals that the executive sedan’s performance — as well as its powertrain — is electric.

On paper there shouldn’t be any doubt. The current Corvette is one of the fastest homegrown production cars currently on sale in the US. It boasts a 0-60mph (100km/h) time of 3.8 seconds and over 400hp on tap for when needs arise.

The Tesla Model S on the other hand is a car for eco-minded executives that worry more about the effects of burning fossil fuels than of the ability to burn rubber. Even in its more performance-orientated guise, the SP85, the car is first and foremost a luxury cruiser, not a track bruiser.

Yet when the two cars met at a drag race, the Tesla beat the Corvette over the standing quarter-mile track by 0.235 seconds, achieving a speed of 116 mph in the process.

Luckily enough, for the Corvette owner’s pride, in the rematch, later the same day, the Tesla was knocked into second place, but only by 0.0774 of a second.

As well as a drag race victory, Tesla is this week celebrating the completion of its US supercharging network. It means that a Tesla owner can now drive from LA to New York and then along the coast to Florida for free using nothing more than Tesla-supplied electricity.

In honor of the achievement, the company is on Thursday undertaking what it calls the Coast to Coast Supercharger Rally. A car will set off from Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne, Los Angeles and attempt to get to New York by Sunday. In the process it hopes to set a new world record for the lowest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the country.